


visions of a binary star

by alicura



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Depression hours, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 03:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20521184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicura/pseuds/alicura
Summary: The idea of absolution for either of them was unfair to those they made suffer.But in the reality of war, terrible war, what could any of them really do?





	visions of a binary star

**Author's Note:**

> little thing about emotions before/after Dimitri gets better

Byleth saw ghosts, too. The ghosts of lost futures, of the culmination of his failures. Of those he lost and those he left behind. They all lurked just behind his eyelids, drowning him daily, threatening to pull him under the roiling ocean of blood that followed wherever his footsteps led. 

He was a complete and utter disgrace. The darkness weighed him down, but he soldiered on. What else was there to do? The world would burn down unless he took command.

The one who was destined to be in command had lost his damn mind--and that was one of Byleth’s failures, too. He should have been there. If he had been there...

The world was burning down all around him, and he could have stopped it. The power of the goddess, and he was asleep when it was needed the most. So much death and destruction, so much suffering, all because he was weak and incompetent. A fool for trying to save Rhea. He should have left her to her fate. His attempt to save her was pointless, anyways. No one knew where she was, alive or dead, and all he earned for his efforts was a five year nap.

The monastery was quiet these days, walking around in the solemn approach of evening, footsteps the only sound echoing through the empty corridors. He walked past the garden where Claude and Hilda had a pointless squabble in the heat of summer, around the corner in the dining hall where Caspar and Raphael would always meet to talk about fighting techniques.

He clenched his fists at his sides, the ghosts of their memories asking him why he was unable to fulfill his duty.

The bridge to the cathedral was vacant, the setting sun in the east bathing the crumbling rock face in cool reds and purples. Winter was nearing, and with it, the threat of a simplistic, uncaring death. A death he sometimes wished he could just reach forward and--

Someone approached across the bridge, coming from the cathedral. Seteth, looking haggard and defeated, not unlike how Byleth felt everyday. “I ask that you refrain from staying too late,” Seteth advised tiredly. “Though I know you prefer to keep an eye on him, perhaps it would be beneficial that you rest instead. We all need you at your best, even him, even if he doesn’t know it right now.”

Byleth looked away. He hadn’t slept in days, too much stress and too many swirling thoughts and too much guilt. The guilt ate away at him every moment of every day. “I won’t stay all night.”

Seteth knew that was a lie, but didn’t push it. What could he do anyways?

What could any of them really do?

Knuckles white under his gloves, Byleth continued onward. The steps up to the cathedral, through the rusted gate, through the doorway that looked minutes away from falling apart. Across the massive hall, before the pile of wreckage that no one knew what to do with, he stood, as he always did. With that vacant look in his eye, the chilling venom he spat at whoever was stupid enough to greet him.

Byleth collapsed onto one of the pews that remained mostly intact, watching him silently. He didn’t know if Dimitri knew he was there, but it didn’t matter. Byleth was there, and he would realize it one day, would understand that Byleth was waiting for him. Just waiting, because Dimitri would accept nothing else.

The nauseating thoughts always came to the forefront when he was there. The guilt that accumulated daily. All the suffering he himself inflicted upon the world, all in the name of seeking justice. Was it justice anymore? He didn’t know.  
The things he did in Dimitri’s name.

Neither of them were blameless. Byleth’s hands were stained just as black as Dimitri’s, all in a vain attempt to bring Dimitri back from the brink, to keep his hands clean, even though they were already soaked by the blood of hundreds. When he recovered, he didn’t want him to feel the guilt Byleth felt daily. 

He would, regardless. There was no taking back the things he did. 

No, there was no absolution for Dimitri, not after the atrocities he committed. But Byleth would try his hardest to prevent him from regretting every second of every day of the coming future, to save him from the things he had the power to. There was nothing he could do about the past, but he would share the burden moving forward, regardless if Dimitri wanted him by his side or not.

He would kill those Dimitri ordered him to, he would kill those for whom Dimitri crafted detailed vivid imaginings of tortute, to put all of them out of their misery. He would kill while he waited.  
He failed him back then, on that fateful day five years ago. Failed all of his students, who should never have seen this world as it was now. They didn’t deserve all of this suffering, all of this killing and death and blood and horror.

If only he had been there to stem the tide.

Sometimes--most times, when finding himself in solitude--he wondered just what he could have done. Leave the figurehead of Fodlan’s religion to her death while he watched? Kill Edelgard before she had the chance to plunge the entire continent into a bloodbath?

The him of five years ago would have balked at the thought. Enraptured by the idea of resolving the corruption and inequality peacefully. That was awfully naive, he came to realize.

The world wasn’t so nice as to allow a peaceful resolution. The end of the war would only come with more death.

His former students and the former faculty all kept a close eye on Byleth. He could feel their gazes and the unsaid words of comfort that died in their throats when he turned his vacant gaze onto them. He wouldn’t accept the sympathies and support of others, not while Dimitri refused the same. 

The months dragged on, one bloodstained moon blending into the next. Killing and waiting and watching Dimitri slip further and further away, just out of grasp. He had to recover. Byleth knew he could. Never could he regain everything he lost, nor make up for everything he did, the countless lives he took, but he could come back. Attempt to find forgiveness for his actions, to repent by building a better world. Repairing the ruins left behind of a continent ripped asunder by a woman on a mission.

Byleth had to know he could recover, otherwise what was the point? Bloodthirsty revenge was no basis to stage a war. As hard as it for Byleth to think, as much as he knew Dimitri deserved that revenge, he knew that Dimitri needed to put aside his feelings of revenge to forge a better future. But he couldn’t ask that of him, not with how raw and hurting his heart was.

Dimitri needed to realize it himself, and Byleth believed he would.

He had to believe that he would, and so he watched and waited and killed. 

* * *

Another night in the cathedral, after the sacrifice of Rodrigue. More blood on his own hands, as well. Though that was one death he would never regret--the blood of a foolish girl who gave her life for her own revenge. He sat on his usual pew, hand over his forehead, head tilted back and observing the cold night sky through the gaping holes in the ceiling. Dimitri wasn’t even there that night. 

Dimitri regained a sliver of himself after Rodrigue’s death, but he was still unwhole. Byleth had feared the worst--he didn’t need more ghosts--but he was eternally grateful that it hadn’t been the final weight added to his unbalanced scale, tipping him even farther past redemption.

Nothing he could do for Felix in the aftermath. Sylvain was there for him, at least. Byleth was no doubt just as guilty for Rodrigue’s death as Dimitri was. He couldn’t impose his condolences on his son.

No, because he felt guilty for even thinking that he deserved the right to offer any sympathy to Felix. Not with the gratitude that it was Rodrigue instead of Dimitri. He couldn’t face his son while he carried that guilty, grateful burden.

He heard footsteps, but he remained still. Anyone should know it was pointless to talk to him.

“Byleth,” a broken voice said, and his blood ran cold. Was he hallucinating now?

But no, there stood Dimitri, shoulders hunched, staring blankly at the disintegrating tiled floor in the center of the hall between the haphazard pews. Was he hearing things, at least?

“Dimitri?” He ventured quietly, craning his neck to take a glance at his face, almost expecting his visage to evaporate into mist the second he acknowledged him, nothing more than a mere wishful conjuration of his tired mind. 

Yet he remained, raising his head to gaze at him, faintest, smallest, vaguest hint of _ himself _ in his eye. Byleth shifted down the pew, leaving a spot open beside him, hoping and wishing against insurmountable odds that Dimitri would accept.

Byleth leaned forward on his knees, hands clasped before his face in a mockery of prayer, eyes fluttering closed upon his realization that Dimitri sat beside him, tall and imposing and dark and nothing like he used to be. 

The ghost of the Dimitri of six years ago haunted him, as well. He knew Dimitri, even then, was tormented. Saw the signs. Everybody saw the signs.

Nothing to be done.

Neither of them said anything. Both sitting there, looking forward, minds a thousand miles away, marred in tragedy and pain that was unseen to the world.

Rodrigue asked Dimitri to let go of his ghosts, but it would take time. He would wait as long it took, just to see Dimitri pieced back together.

He looked towards him, hunched over next to him, head hanging, empty. Byleth’s heart, his wretched unbeating heart, ached. For himself, for the bleeding world, for all those who were suffering. Ached for Dimitri in particular, forced to endured years of torment--alone.

Alone.

“Dimitri--” he started, cutting himself off. There was nothing he could say to undo the years. He stretched his hand out to grab Dimitri’s, clenching his fingers under his. Dimitri turned his head, whispers of pain tracing his face, filling his eye. “I’m sorry.”  
Dimitri stared at him, then looked at their hands. Byleth’s looked small compared to his, and he was warm under his glove, but his hand was limp, unsure what to do with it. Unfamiliar with affectionate touch after years of isolation and unloving solitude.

“I should have been there,” Byleth said, tightening his grasp and avoiding his eye, too weak to handle the expression on his face. Of sadness and emptiness and a tortured mind. “I could have--” He didn’t know what he could have done, but it had to have been _ something _. Anything would have been more than what he actually did. Blindly run into danger, single-minded search for justice that fell apart the second he ran ahead.

“Don’t,” Dimitri said, his voice rough. Deeper than it had been years ago, and no longer hiding the battlefield of anger and betrayal and sadness in his heart. It became the palette of his tone, painting all his words black and red. “It’s not your fault.”

Byleth swallowed, shaking his head. The pale green glimpse of his hair in his field of vision a sickening reminder. Why was he the one to bear Sothis’ power? Anyone besides him was a better choice. He had her power, but he was a fool. “I should have been there for you. I knew you were struggling. I knew this would happen.”

Dimitri’s fingers tensed under his, but Byleth refused to let go. Not again. He would never let go again. “This was inevitable. Edelgard is the one to blame. No one else. Do you truly believe you could have spoken sense into her?”

No, Edelgard’s will was absolute. There was no other way in her vision for her future. This would have happened no matter what. Byleth shook his head shortly. “No, but I should have remained by your side.”

Silence dragged on. Both of them were unfamiliar with one another after so long, after so much change. 

Dimitri’s voice was quiet when he spoke again, almost timid, guilt lacing his every word. “I did blame you sometimes, for everything that happened...if you hadn’t gone for Rhea...” Byleth flinched, and this time it was Dimitri’s grasp that tightened to keep their hands together, his larger fingers wrapping around Byleth’s palm. “That was your duty. I understand that now. But sometimes, I...I wish you had let her die.”

Byleth turned to him, muscles taut, tilting his chin up. “So do I.” He tried to tell himself that he wished that only because of the way he knew it ended up. He would never know if he would feel the same if he had been able to save Rhea. Sothis gave him dominion over time, but even he couldn’t turn back the clock five years--Goddess knew he tried.

There was a flicker of the Dimitri he once knew. Not the feigned innocence, nor the false ideals of nobility, but the vulnerability, the fear, playing off one another and shown to Byleth in their moments of shared weakness. His face was sharper, angular since he grew up, but the blue of his eye was the same. Flickering gaze across Byleth’s face, depth in his gaze like he was in awe that Byleth existed.

That was how Byleth looked at Dimitri, too.

“You once told me I needed to find my purpose,” Byleth said. “In order to move on. I thought I did, in protecting Rhea. But I realize that was never it. I failed in my purpose when I left you behind, left all of you behind. I couldn’t protect any of you.”

Dimitri pulled his hand away, and Byleth’s frozen heart ripped in half in cold panic, but then Dimitri was surrounding him, pulling him into a rough embrace. Face buried in his cloak, Byleth clutched him back. Dimitri’s hands on his back, face pressed into his hair, breath on the top of his head. Desperation in tightness of his embrace, tight enough that Byleth nearly struggled to breathe.

Ironic to be consoled by Dimitri, who needed it the most.

No, they consoled each other. Both struggling through the darkness, different origins but the same destination, one step at a time, and they had each other to lean on.


End file.
